418 - Lyonel Douge (TipSnaps) On Helping Creators Make More Money

What is going on everyone Thanks for tuning in to another episode of forward-thinking Founders. I am very grateful to have your attention at least for the next 15 minutes of this episode forward-thinking Founders is a hot gas right interview a free Feed and Seed stage managers about their products what they want to build into the world and why we dive into how they spend their time. What's their Vision? What's the ordinate stores? All these things? You can learn all about what's coming tomorrow? Cuz these companies haven't hit critical skill yet. Most of them haven't hit product-market fit. These are just early-stage companies and the big question is what can this be it? And then this podcast we bring that out. So with that I really hope you enjoy your time with me today's episode and I've already done two hundred plus if you like this one listen to some of the other ones like with a Mighty Coon Austen Allred Leah Culver, give great interview to check it out. Enjoy the repository in for now. Let's get into the Days episode of there we go. All right. How's it going everyone another episode of

For thinking Founders. We got the founders about their companies their vision for the future and how to quiet it today. I'm very excited to be talking to you Lionel do Jay-Z founder of tip now, welcome to the show. How's it going? Hey, Matt, how's it going? Good, good again. I'm excited to have you on on the podcast learn a little more about what you working on some people that haven't heard if it's not soon. Can I share what it is when you're working on a platform for creators all kinds to monetize their followers ships. I talked about like a Kardashian or vision statement. We want enable anybody with an audience to be able to directly monetize. Fanbase the basically leveraging the power that they have in their social media platforms and put it right in their hands on their followers, you know, they have fifty thousand a hundred thousand followers. They may not even realize they should be monetized in that the first way they should do it is through direct monetization selling content and exclusive access and content or messaging to their fans and

tipsnaps is all about

And it kind of walk me through is done with the try it out with the Creator, you know, what like that you like that I myself was thinking it was that you know about this on the podcast wanted to give it a shot that experience. You know, how can someone use it looks like it's really straightforward from both sides, but has a Creator, you know, there's a 5-minute register. They're not even 2 minute registration process. It feels a lot like your standard social media platform feels just like Instagram, but there's a pay while in Frontier content now like validation at like age identity banking information tax information. That's a little further. So once you start earning money on the platform, then we we do that a prior to you could just create an account upload content you get a you know that unique URL with your you know, your username in that you basically take that and post it on your other insult. You post on Instagram Twitter Snapchat Tik Tok would have you and he basically so listen to your existing followers are like hey, you know if you want

Exclusive content or do you want to interact with me through DMs or private messages in a leveraged my link in my bio or leveraged at Lincoln subscribe to my page and that's that's kind of the flow until for the subscribers, you know, they see that link on on the that existing platform. They clicked through the kind of see some titties are content to see what the page is about. They could either subscribe and they don't know what I've typically we also have a concept of a a tip pool which is like crowdfunding so multiple subscribers get all throw in whatever $5 all into a pot and offered that up to that creator that kind of unique feature. That's not really out there in the marketplace. And obviously is it the creators were over to the exciting for you? What's the origin story here?

Sure thinks it's 2015. I'm in I've got an Enterprise IT background. I think I'm at work and I'm scrolling through Instagram and I'm seeing you know fitness trainers are bartenders, you know normal people, you know Gathering fifty thousand followers on on their social media and I knew back then that this would become you know, this monetize right like a fraction of those fans would be willing to pay for followers would be willing to pay for exclusive content. So I knew that back then, you know, I decided you know that bootstrap tipsnaps today working on a precede round now hoping to close that out by the end of November, but you know, I bootstrap Bill to be one myself. So I just knew this is where was going. I think 20/20 in the pandemic is absolutely help that you see a lot of proliferation with some of our competitors, but I think there's a lot of downsides to that and I think it's still very early if we think about you know, if we think about social media like from a

In a broader scale, it's still really in its infancy, especially from a influencer monetization perspective historically, they've you know, they've only kind of try to monetize their you know, anything about 2017 when I launched if you know most of the Creator's I literally started dming people like a you have a hundred thousand followers and you have no link, you know, you're not promoting anyting you could sell content and some of your fan and their followers and subscribe to it. And so we change lives like we had a mother in the Dominican Republic start making $10,000 a month. She bought a house you bought a car, you know, her life is kind of transformed based off of off of this concept table with right there to be to be take to be had so, you know historically into inches of always thought about monetization like brand Partnerships, but most of them will not land brand Partnerships. Most of them don't even realize there any pointers or not Savvy the meaning business that they don't realize you don't know what that transaction should look like or how to promote

You know why not just take the drug passage of monetization of that follows ship and if we think about like, you know, if you ask the average 6th grader what they want to be when they grow up the top two answers or YouTuber influencer. So like this is only going to grow there's a lot of Niche categories to be kind of captured and that's where it's not something to fill the gap.

Do you know how to look out at everything going on in the future for tipsnaps Jennifer 5 or 10 years? What do you think? It looks like then? I guess another words in it. You know, I'm 10 years. What's the big Vision here? And then what direction you're growing and everyday?

Great question. So the direction is you know influencers are business of their own 90% of that don't realize insulin to sew a stat. I love the kind of share with you know, potential investors are people in talking about tipsnaps has from the billion Instagram accounts 121 million of those accounts have over 10,000 followers that sell a hundred and twenty of these are not business accounts 121 million have over 10,000 followers and it's only Instagram. So all of them are creators, all of them were influences of their own, right? They don't realize it they may not know it but in ten years time all of them want to monetize that bass and there's going to be no more every every day more creative lunches are born sell. The idea for tipsnaps is

Enable those people give them the tools they need to monetize their content, but then also optimize your business. So, you know, I'm working on kind of like sister products that like help from like a email messaging perspective or let you know, like there's no ownership of your followers on income and social media, right like you Instagram or Twitter decides to disable your account what happens right like to start over that kind of sucks feel like fixing problems like that but sucks from the Creator perspective other things like registering your own unique domain, you know, that's not really obvious to everybody especially, you know, they're not they don't have laptops. They just have their phone and they they have a lot of followers so they they should be able to monetize that so kind of enable then everything's kind of Mobile, you know, 98% of our traffic's mobile weed, you know, we don't have craters with with great video editing software and they don't have all the the tools our team members their independent, but they still should and wants monetizar contents of cell division is

The right tools provide the best service provider the best in a white glove service to our creators, but also to our subscribers right? Like there's many platforms where you can subscribe to somebody and they don't upload any content for 30 days or more beyond that right? That sucks. I got paid $20 for 2-person scription. And and what do I get from it? So like, you know, there's a lot to we're trying to do to take to to try to make the plane fare for 4 subscribers as well. So yeah and to help make that Vision happen, you know, it'll take some work, right and also you need some help everybody needs help in a dream to start at some a question for you is how can the forward-thinking founders community help you? Are you looking for creators? Are you hiring at you fight a fundraising that you mentioned that you know, how come the forward-thinking, you know Founders Community assist.

Thanks for that. So happy I joined forward-thinking cuz I love the picture of like bringing Founders together networking. So yeah, I'm actively trying to close my precede around. You know, we got a lot of traction from the user perspective. We got four hundred and ten thousand registered users. Most of them are people who just kind of like, they're either subscribers or the Curious. You know, the Creator's we have about 1,500 creators on the platform to burn money, but we we get new ones every day from the community. I think, you know, I'm about halfway through my raise a definitely want to keep networking from an erased perspective but also like strategic Partnerships and I think that you know, there's probably a lot of calendars on here that are in the Creator space or maybe they kind of help manage agency your talent resources. I'd love to network with people like that. I love the network of people in any type of entertainment industry, whether it's music or whether it's Fitness or culinary any type of vertical around create.

The network so you know, I love you. Don't reach out. Maybe my my Social Links will be LinkedIn in the post here. But yeah, and I plan on getting more active in the community as well. So and learning from found herself and someone wanted to wanted to reach out they want us to take you up on some of those. You know, there's asks, how can I do that? You know that you have a website URL. Is there an app named? You know, can they find you on social media or you can email you have until we get in touch with its El duche at tip snaps Twitter Lionel d j i o n e l d o u g e but if you're just curious about the product the platform tip snaps.com. We got we got social media linked on our website on your homepage. So feel free to reach out in any means but yeah it for me directly my Twitter my my emails best.

I will thank you so much for coming on under the podcast. I really appreciate it. Thank you, Matt.

Alright, thank you so much for listening to the episode of forward-thinking Pounders. If you're still in there, you're just saying that I want more. How can I get more? Well luckily you can get it at forward-thinking at city 4th of June city is a community for the Ford thinking Network. Right? I mean multiple different aspects of the city 1 a.m. Is some of the previous guesses have been on the podcast like Jonathan Farkle Kristen Anderson Austin already come back and they do animes with the residents. You can ask him any question that you want, right? You can ask them about fundraising the early days how they got their customers. We do these every single week with another, you know, really great founder that has been on the podcast. Additionally we are pitched battles, right? So if you want feedback on your pitch in the opportunity to potentially pitch in front of a VC's and talk one-on-one with venture capitalist. This is where to do it. These are monthly pitch battles. So if you don't get in the first time try again, right the goal is to improve and get feedback to eventually want to raise I get into the room with a b c.

To raise Capital 3D can get back to your company building a great start at building a great business. The last thing I'll mention is that if you were kind of interest in just Community, we have our coffee hours and happy hours where you can meet other residents learn all that. They're working on talk about social things anything you want. This is a city for Founder's it is for investors. It is for start-up enthusiasm is for anyone that loves startups. So if you're interested in what I'm saying, go to forward-thinking. City and join the city for $15 a month, you know, the way the reason I charge is cuz I want to be able to do this full-time and bring as much value as I possibly can. I think it's a well worth the value can ask any of the current residents and they will attest to that they're going to forward-thinking. City doing the city and you'll see immediately then the next day. I met the next picks battle the next event, and I hope to see you there for thinking. City. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.